Let me warn you--if you start reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, you will not want to put it down. I read in in practically one sitting and have already started Farmer Boy. It was with a feeling of nostalgia that I started reading thinking that here is a simpler way of life, a world without the cares of our modern world, but I had to reassess my perceptions time and time again as I read. It was a simpler world in so many ways, and sadly thinking of it I think our modern world is lacking in many ways, too. But to think that people's lives were in any way easier is most decidedly a misconception. The Big Woods were often harsh and unforgiving. Just surviving in such a demanding environment was a challenge. To say that the past is another country is not so very far off from the truth really.
The story, written for a juvenile audience (but enjoyed by people of any age) is a simple one and simply told, but it's quite beautifully told, too. It follows the rhythms and seasons of the year beginning in Autumn and following through to the next. It's written in third person and told from the perspective of six-year-old Laura who lives in the deep Wisconsin woods with her Pa, Ma, older sister Mary and baby Carrie. It's not hard to see why Laura is such a beloved childhood character. She's very much a real (and imperfect) girl that any child can relate to. Her Pa calls her his "half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up" because she's so small. Plainer than Mary, she has mousy brown hair with no little ringlets that receive so many admiring glances like Mary's. She's mostly good, or at least tries to be, but Pa has occasion to take the strap down from the wall when she misbehaves.
Laura is particularly fond of her father, who sets out each day to check on his traps. If she's lucky he will finish early and will take out his fiddle to sing or tell stories of his own childhood or of his father's who lives even deeper in the woods where the trees grow so very close together. To modern ears it's strange to hear of a small girl relate how much she loves bear meat or how she and Mary play with a pig's bladder--handily blown up to be batted around like a balloon, but this is sometime just after the Civil War in a wild and untamed (and untrammelled) America. But it's fascinating, too.
This is Laura's story mostly. The world, her world, is seen through a small girl's eyes. It is a world of wonder and happiness mostly. But there are also moments of adventure like when her Ma unknowingly slaps a bear outside their barn at night. There are no near neighbors. She has only her sisters to play with and cousins on those few visits that are made at holiday time. But the world opens outward through her Pa's stories. And finally at six she is old enough to travel into town which is quite a sight to behold. The store where her Pa trades his furs is filled with so many things she could look for weeks and still not see everything.
Just as such a young girl would not know her parent's history, so the reader has yet to learn of their meeting and romance. But Ma, Caroline, grew up in the East, and Laura admires the beautiful dress she knows Ma brought with her and is saved for those extra special occasions like a dance during sugar snow season when the sap is taken from the Maple trees. It's a time when friends and family come together t help Laura's grandparents turn the sap into sugar at the end of winter.
I read Little House in the Big Woods as a child and it just shows you where my mind is usually at that the part I remember so vividly happens to be that sugar snow. I remember Laura and Mary eating the snow that has had syrup poured into it to make candy. (I always wanted to try that by the way but never have). I don't know why I ever waited so long to reread the book and now will read the rest anxiously following the family's adventures. To say I loved the story is an understatement. Farmer Boy is a story I didn't read as a child--I'm sure I thought a "boy's" story would hold no value for a little girl like me. But I am certainly enjoying it now.
If you have never read Little House in the Big Woods (or any of the other books), I highly recommend it. Or if it's been a while, go and pick up a copy now. It is a perfect Winter read!